Sleep Deprivation
Last night was one of those nights that parents of older children never told me about. It shouldn’t have been so surprising. My naive expectations of parenthood were that it would be tough at the beginning, and gradually get easier. So with perseverance and good intentions, I expected to surmount the initial difficulties, and coast from there. As I said, I was naive. Instead, raising two small children has proved to be a microcosm of life, with the difficulty upped at least two levels. Sometimes things are easy and joyful, sometimes they are difficult and challenging, even torturous, like last night.
21mo Guppy woke crying sometime after midnight, less than two hours after my husband G. Grod and I had gone to sleep. I went into comfort him and offer him water. Each time he settled down, I’d stumble back to bed, then ten to fifteen minutes later he’d cry again. G. and I took turns. I think it was on the third round that I brought in the Tylenol. This normally clears up nighttime difficulties pretty quickly. Alas, Guppy did not go back to sleep till long after two, and after several long comfort sessions.
G. and I stumbled around this morning, haunted from our hours of interrupted and jangled sleep. Another reminder that parenthood is like life–it goes in cycles. Everything passes, both good and bad. It’s a linear progression only in age.